1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to surgical methods and apparatus in general, and more particularly to surgical methods and apparatus for attaching soft tissue to bone and for reducing and fixing fractured bones.
2. Brief Description of Related Art
In many situations soft tissue may need to be attached (or re-attached) to bone. By way of example but not limitation, a ligament or tendon may have been detached from bone as the result of injury and/or accident, and appropriate repair may require re-attaching the ligament or tendon to its host bone. By way of further example but not limitation, some surgical procedures may require the suspension of soft tissue from an adjacent bone, e.g., a so-called “bladder neck suspension” may involve suspending portions of the bladder and/or urethra from the pubic bone in order to address incontinence.
Currently, suture anchors are typically used to attach soft tissue to bone. Such suture anchors generally comprise a body and one or more sutures attached to the body. In use, the body of the suture anchor is deployed in bone so that the one or more sutures extend out of the bone. The one or more sutures may then be used to secure the soft tissue to the bone, e.g., by passing the one or more sutures through the soft tissue and then knotting the suture so as to hold the soft tissue in position relative to the bone.
Current suture anchors generally suffer from several disadvantages. First, current suture anchors have their one or more sutures attached to the suture anchor either at the time of manufacture or in the operating room just prior to use. In either case, the one or more sutures are attached to the body of the suture anchor prior to deployment of the suture anchor in the body. As a result, during surgery, the surgeon is constrained by the configuration of the suture anchor once it has been deployed in the body. In other words, with current suture anchor constructions, the particular anchor body/suture configuration selected by the surgeon prior to deployment in the bone significantly constrains the choices available to the surgeon after the suture anchor has been deployed in the bone. This can be a significant limitation, since in many circumstances the surgeon may wish to adjust a procedure in response to tissue conditions which may only become apparent after the procedure has begun.
In addition to the foregoing, it can be difficult and/or inconvenient for the surgeon to knot the suture when physical access to the surgical site is limited, e.g., as in the case of an arthroscopic procedure.
As a result, one object of the present invention is to provide a new and improved suture anchor for attaching soft tissue to bone which permits the surgeon to attach one or more sutures to the body of the suture anchor after the body of the suture anchor has been deployed in bone, thereby allowing the surgeon to customize the manner in which the soft tissue is attached to the bone.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a surgeon with the ability to modify a soft tissue repair construct, in part or in whole, without removing any previously-deployed anchors forming part of the repair construct.
And another object of the present invention is to provide a new and improved suture anchor for attaching soft tissue to bone which permits the soft tissue to be attached to the bone without tying a knot in the suture.
Fracture plates are commonly used to reduce and fix broken bones. These plates may be employed in many locations around the body including, but not limited to the humerus, radius, ulna, femur and tibia. Oftentimes surrounding soft tissue is used to augment the repair. To incorporate soft tissue into the repair, surgeons will pass surgical suture through the soft tissue in a variety of stitching patterns and then secure the suture to the implant used to fix the fracture in the bone. Current technology allows for surgeons to pass the surgical suture through circular holes made along the perimeter of the implant. Traditionally, the suture had to be placed before the implant was secured to the bone but more recent developments allow suture to be threaded through the holes after the implant is secured to the bone. Nonetheless, all existing technology is limited to a hole through which suture must be threaded.
Limitations of this design include the fact that suture may not be removed easily from the hole after it has been threaded through. Additionally, due to the fact that suture will typically have a curved needle attached to its leading end to facilitate suture passing, it is unwise to pass a second or third segment of suture through the same hole in the implant as the surgeon may risk damaging the original strand with the sharp point of the curved needle.
Therefore, there exists a need for an improved method of securing surgical suture to implants than current technology provides and it is the objective of this invention to provide that improvement.